Hi, I'm Christine Jensen.
I work for Utah State University Extension in Emery County.
Today I want to show you how to cook a meal on the--
as an emergency preparedness item,
and then cook it in the Wonderbox Style Insulated
Cooking Box.
Many people have heard of the Wonder Box.
It's been around for many, many years.
It's been used through generations of time.
We know that in some of the research that I have done
Anna Pearse is the one who began using it in the 1960s in South
Africa among the Zulu tribes.
This is a method of cooking that saves on fuel.
And as you can see, I'm going to use my little butane
burner here.
I am almost out of butane.
And if I were in an emergency situation
and I didn't have enough butane or wood or charcoal
to use a Dutch oven, whatever, I can use this method
and it will cook like a slow cooker without electricity.
And it takes very little fuel.
And this is why it's so nicely in third world countries,
and they use them on a regular basis to cook their meals.
Whereas here in the United States,
we don't use them that much because we have seems
like an abundance of fuel.
So today, I've started a beef stew.
And as you can see, it's already started to cook.
OK.
Inside of my pot, I have to use a pot that has rounded handles.
I cannot use one with a long handle because this will go
through the Wonder Box and it lets air pockets come in.
I'm braising my beef so that I can--
I don't like to put raw meat in it.
This is just my own personal favorite.
I've doused it and braised it for a little bit with flour
and then I'm braising it in this with a little bit of oil.
Now, I've chopped my potatoes.
This is just a simple beef stew.
I've chopped my potatoes into chunks.
I've left the skins on because remember,
I'm in an emergency situation.
I may not be able to find my peeler.
I'm going to add my potatoes.
I'm adding some onion.
That's conveniently been all chopped for me.
I've got carrots that might be going bad in my refrigerator
because, again, I have no power.
So I'm adding some carrots.
Stir this up.
Now, you're going to have to have a liquid.
When cooking in a Wonder Box, you
have to have a product that's got a lot of liquid.
If I were to put it in like this,
it would not cook because there's not enough liquid.
I'm going to pour some liquid in this.
And then I want to make sure that all of the liquid
has come to a boil, a full rolling boil,
for approximately 10 to 15 minutes.
Not just around the edges, not just
around the sides of the pan.
And if you can stir it down, it's not hot enough.
You have to bring it to a boil so that it will
cook for the length of time.
In a cooking box, you can only cook
between six and eight hours.
If you leave it longer, your temperatures
are going to go to low.
And now, I'm going to cheat today.
I'm going to use a beef stew sauce.
The one thing about cooking in this is you cannot open the lid
and check for your seasonings in the middle.
If you season it first, great.
Or season it at the very end.
If you season it in the middle, you
have to take it off the-- out of the Wonder Box,
put it on your stove, and/or hover you're heating things
and bring it back to a boil for 15 minutes
so that when you put it back into the Wonder Box,
it goes back into their hot because you've
lost too much temperature.
It's the Wonder Box was developed
so that you could cook a meal with using
a limited amount of fuel.
Now, mine's going to remain cooking here on my butane,
still with a little bit of butane that I have.
And it will stay that way until it comes to a boil.
But I would like to show you what it looks like when
it comes out of a Wonder Box.
This has been cooking for approximately seven hours.
I fixed it early this morning.
And this is another beef stew similar to the one
that I've made here.
Now, I keep mine in a banana box so it stabilizes it.
It keeps the lid down tight upon the cooking contents,
and it just is a lot easier for me.
It can sit alone.
But if it happens to be disturbed
and your lid pops off, I have done demonstrations
where people have cooked for me and they
have let it get too cold and we've
had to throw the meal away.
Now, as I pull this off, sometimes you'll
see the steam rising off of it.
Do you see how hot it is?
In fact, I have to have hot pads in order to--
that's been cooking since the early this morning.
And there's my beef stew.
Now, if I were to--
now, this is the time that I would serve this.
You want to serve it hot.
This is not something you'll want to rewarm.
You want to make sure that for food safety,
you put it immediately in the refrigerator
after you have served this, but you can see
the steam coming off this food.
And it's fully cooked.
And again, it's the same ingredients-- beef, potatoes,
carrots, and onions.
If you have any questions, please
don't hesitate to call me at my office.
Or if you would like to email me,
please email me through Utah State University.
Thank you.